Day 6: Asking

My proverbial question. Why? So often coming back to it. Why in one instance does ease flow, allowing peace and silence to enter? A communing between “self” and “non-self” that is as involuntary as sneeze. And in most others, a stiffness and a wanting.

It seems to be an issue of porousness and letting go. How to maintain porousness without leaving oneself vulnerable and open to the gulls that could peck one’s underbelly to bits?

I am like the moon, waxing and waning. Ease, dis-ease, peace, strife, releasing, holding.

This week I am sucked into my tenth house habit, evidenced by shorter missives. But soon the paint will arrive. And when I paint walls I enter into a process trance. Enter into my fourth house.

Day 5: A heaviness

Such heat. Distraction. And the potential to suffocate. I breathe into onions, sand, muscles. Sticking.

Day 4: Waiting

The first hole yielded entirely too much symmetry. And I am asymmetrical. Two days of digging, only to put the ground right back. The earth gave way with such ease upon digging the second hole; it whispered to me that it was right. The jasmine I carried with me from house to house, state to state, is finally at rest. A place of (im)permanence.

The day of my first entry: an epiphany. A glowing. Colors more saturated and feeling a deep satiation in my belly. Wanting it to continue, and then in a moment desire enters in. So, today: muted colors. Edginess. Frustration. But I am being with what is. Some moments yield an ease, and others do not.

Day 3: A shimmering

Newness. Things sparkle. It seems each time I sit down to write, in my room of windows, a cardinal joins me. Strong. Red. Out there, but in here.

Day 2: Maintaining

I am maintaining, but it flows with more effort. How easy it is to form an expectation based on a magical moment. I try to write today’s entry like yesterday’s, but it feels dishonest. Some days will yield large gifts, and some days will yield small. I have to celebrate all of it.

There were things. Are things. The lava walkway is a deep blood red from yesterday’s rain. So lovely. And the spider web. An accidental encounter, but a sensual experience, enveloping me warmly. Not at all a hostile uninvited attack. And there was the sand. Yesterday’s excursion to the park. Lowering myself into the box for the first time, allowing myself to sit in the grit, among the sad sea of worn shovels and pails. At what point does sand become more of an irritation than a joyful encounter? I wish I could trace myself back to that moment. Yesterday, in the box I invited my daughter to pour sand over my legs. It tingled when it touched my skin, as did the spider web. I feel porous. More open.

Though working hard to maintain openness. How easy it is to close up. I seem to be developing some resilience however. Not unraveling at the site of mess. Not allowing chaos to enter into my consciousness. Staying within the whole that is right now. The process, not the end.

My daughter exists within process and it amazes me. She scoops and she pours. Scoops and pours. No goal. My teacher.

Day 1: Pulling

Among golden moneywort, creeping thyme, and flagstone rocks in various shades of blue and grey, grows bermuda and crab grasses, competing for ground. Feeling awareness of the duality I assign to this space–“good” plants, “bad” plants, plants that deserve space, water, and air, and those considered “weeds”–I pull anyway, envisioning cascading tendrils of yellow and green that will emit an aroma upon a step. An ideal I strive towards: no pointy blades, no ugliness. Again, aware of the duality I capitulate–beauty, ugliness, perfection, imperfection, yes, no. I pull as a kind of meditation, breathing love into the plants I deem not worthy, knowing that this is all a metaphorical process for the sangha that I seek within. The community of plants I want in my garden, the community of plants that I do not, become a part of that journey.

Community, home, peace, balance. Amidst complexity.

I do not wish to be exclusive, but I also know that what sustains me, softens me, allows me to inhale more deeply and exhale without effort, cascades. Is soft. And possesses many hues and smells. So, I make room for it to grow.

The process is exhaustive. Continual pulling. On knees. I hear cracking. Feel pangs of sensation in my back. I could pay Monsanto for the appropriate weapons of mass destruction. But the very idea of eradication implies there is an end. And that there is a battle to be fought. There is no end, only continuous relationship and process. And no battle, only surrender to what is. So, I breathe love into the process and make friends with it. Wear no gloves. And venerate the dirt under my fingernails.

Hello

Sangha, roughly translated from Sanskrit, means "company", "community", or "association." I came upon this word last week, and I know I had come upon it before, but this time it hit me hard in the gut. A word, that can sum up everything. An entire search. Like receiving a diagnosis after experiencing a long drawn-out mysterious disease. A kind of liberation.

In the Buddhist religion Sangha is literally the monastery, where monks and nuns commune. It provides the structure and support for their spiritual practice. In Buddhism, locating a Sangha is intrinsic to staying on the path. But beyond the physical structure of a building or the community that dwells or meditates within it, Sangha may also include “one’s cushion and walking meditation path, along with trees, sky, and flowers” (Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching). As part of my own search, I also think of Sangha as a kind of home. The community to which I belong. My tribe. And the place(s) that provides me with refuge. In the astrological chart, this is connected to issues of the fourth house: home, hearth, and family, where my north node resides.

While Sangha more directly speaks to a group and/or a place (outer manifestations of reality), the concept can also be applied to interior states of consciousness: the home we seek within. The search for Sangha, both in its exterior and interior manifestations, forms the crux of my own soul journey in this lifetime (the fourth house is also the inner refuge). This blog is a devotion to that journey, a medium to help me stay on course: engaged and mindful.

Presently Saturn is squaring my natal Sun, challenging me to form a disciplined practice. Thus, I plan to have a conversation here daily for one year––in the effort to turn fragmentation into wholeness, channel unproductive emotions into a productive creative flow, and, in the words of a wonderful teacher of mine, George Kokis, to find ease in “making special” (his words to describe artmaking). Because, godamn it. I'm constipated.